Isle of Wight County is a county located in
the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of the Commonwealth of Virginia,
a state of the United States.
During the 17th century, shortly after establishment of
the settlement at Jamestown in 1607, English settlers explored and
began settling the areas adjacent to Hampton Roads. Captain John
Smith in 1608 crossed the James River and obtained fourteen bushels
of corn from the Native American inhabitants, the Warrosquyoackes or
Warraskoyaks. They were a tribe of the Powhatan Confederacy, who had
three towns in the area of modern Smithfield. The Warraskoyaks were
driven off from their villages in 1622 and 1627, as part of the
reprisals for the Great Massacre of 1622.
The first English plantations along the south shore
within present-day Isle of Wight were established by Puritan
colonists, beginning with that of Christopher Lawne in May 1618.
Several members of the Puritan Bennett family also came to settle
the area, including Richard Bennett who led the Puritans to
neighboring Nansemond in 1635, and later became governor of the
Virginia Colony.
By 1634, the Colony consisted of eight shires or
counties with a total population of approximately 5,000 inhabitants.
One of these was Warrosquyoake Shire, renamed Isle of Wight County
in 1637, after the island off the south coast of England of the same
name. The name was probably changed because the Isle of Wight had
been the home of some of the principal colonists, although the
Native American name also went through multiple Anglicisations,
eventually becoming "Warwicke Squeake".
St. Luke's Church, built in 1632, is the nation's only
original Gothic church and the oldest existing church of English
foundation. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in
recognition of its significance.
In 1732 a considerable portion of the northwestern part
of the original shire was added to Brunswick County; and in 1748 the
entire county of Southampton was carved out of it.
During the American Civil War, Company F of the 61st
Virginia Infantry of the Confederate Army was called the "Isle of
Wight Avengers."